1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the distribution of pharmaceutical products in general and in particular to a kit, comprising containers of pharmaceutical products with an individual multipart flag label attached to each of the containers, for distributing said products to doctor's offices, medical clinics and any other persons licensed to dispense pharmaceutical products.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Other than "sample" drugs which are frequently dispensed directly to a patient by a physician, most drugs and other pharmaceutical products are distributed to patients through a pharmacy.
For the most part, it has been the practice for a physician to write a prescription for a patient and the patient to then take the prescription to a pharmacy and have it filled. This practice has been both costly and time consuming. It has been costly because it requires a separate drug distribution center, i.e., the pharmacy. It has been time consuming because it takes time for the prescriber to write the prescription and for the patient to have it filled.
In recent years, some pharmaceutical product distributors have been selling pharmaceutical products directly to physicians and medical clinics for resale to patients. This emerging practice saves both the physician and the patient time and money in that the physician does not have to write a prescription, the patient does not have to go to a pharmacy to get the prescription filled and, generally, the cost of distributing drugs in this manner is less with the savings being passed on to the patient. It also provides the dispensing physicians and medical clinics an additional source of income.
While providing certain advantages, prior known direct drug distribution systems, i.e. those involving the sale of pharmaceutical products directly to pharmacies, physicians and medical clinics for resale to patients, have certain disadvantages. For example, in general, they have not provided an adequate means for making it easy for a dispenser to package or furnish drugs, for logging the drugs dispensed, for controlling the inventory of the drugs to be dispensed, or for preparing billing statements or other records for drugs dispensed.